Progress in sociology: A reply to Cole's reply

A reply to the former editor argues the priority of standardized empirical definitions in scientific studies of causation, proposes a small set of definitions to be standardized in sociology, and cites exemplars of such standardization in other fields.     

Preludes to Attainment: Race,Sex, and Student Achievement Orientations*

This paper investigates race-sex differences in achievement orientation using a national sample of high school seniors. Achievement orientation is approximated by attitudinal measures (educational expectations, occupational aspirations, academic self concept, self esteem, and locus-of-control) known to be correlated with expected and actual attainments. Three major sets of student background factors are related to ent orientation: (1) family SES, (2) school context, and (3) parental expectations. Race-sex comparisons of achievement orientation revealed several interesting, but few definitive differences. Occupational aspirations were a dimension of consistent differentiation: whites and males aspired to higher status, less stereotypic occupations than did blacks and females. Pronounced interpersonal effects are implied throughout, with family educational attainments, peer plans, teacher evaluations (grades) and parent aspirations strongly influencing achievement orientations in all race-sex subgroups. The paper calls for intensive, longitudinal studies of student interactions with parents, friends, teachers, and other individuals who influence their perceptions of what constitute desirable and possible future roles.     

Quasi-orderings and population ethics

Population ethics contains several principles that avoid the repugnant conclusion. These rules rank all possible alternatives, leaving no room for moral ambiguity. Building on a suggestion of Parfit, this paper characterizes principles that provide incomplete but ethically attractive rankings of alternatives with different population sizes. All of them rank same-number alternatives with generalized utilitarianism.This paper was presented to the conference Incommensurability and Value, Château du Baffy, Caen, April 1994, and an earlier version was presented at the Applied Ethics Centre of the University of British Columbia. We are indebted to John Broome, whose comments inspired this paper, Alan Gibbard, James Griffin, Peter Hammond, Adam Morton, Klaus Nehring, and conference and seminar participants for comments and suggestions. Financial support through a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged     

Ballot theorem and lattice path crossings

We consider lattice paths which cross the diagonal exactly r times, and by a simple method determine the number of such paths when the endpoint is given. Then as a byproduct we easily obtain Feller's (1968, p.84) result for crossings when the length is given.     

USING REPEATED MEASURES DESIGNS IN PROGRAM EVALUATION OF FAMILY THERAPY*

Data from 14 simulated families were analyzed with both a repeated measures and an ordinary analysis of variance design in order to illustrate the differences between the two approaches. The advantages of repeated measures designs for the analysis of family data in the program evaluation of family therapy are highlighted.     

The minimum wage and tipped employees

Using data from theCensus of Retail Trade, I estimate that allowing restaurants to use servers’ tipped income to satisfy minimum wage requirements would create at least 360,000 new high-paying jobs and increase total income for tipped workers by at least 8 percent. Conversely, if the minimum wage were increased 10 percent, tipped workers would experience a 4 percent decrease in employment and a 6 percent reduction in hours worked, and all servers (tipped and non-tipped) would experience a 3 to 5 percent decrease in total income because the tipped jobs lost paid more than the minimum wage. By not allowing employers to use all of a worker’s tipped income to meet the minimum wage, state and federal minimum wage laws inhibit the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs paying well above the minimum wage. Total elimination of this credit would decrease employment at least 10 percent.